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The once-steady stream of regulations and rules from the Obama administration — instructions for insurance companies, hospitals and states on how to put the law in place — has slowed to a trickle in recent months in an attempt to avoid controversies before the election. Many states, too, have done little public work to avoid making the law an election issue for state officials on the ballot.

But work has been going on behind the scenes — both in the Department of Health and Human Services and at the state level. As soon as Wednesday, the gears and levers of government bureaucracy are likely to start moving at full speed again.

HHS is expected to begin to release the backlog of regulations. And the states will quickly face a Nov. 16 deadline to tell the Obama administration whether they’ll implement a health insurance exchange — a key part of the law about where consumers will purchase health insurance after 2014.

If Obama wins, that work is likely to continue through the early years of his second term. Democrats will want the law put in place as quickly as possible. They face a late 2013 deadline to have the exchanges ready to go.

And if Romney wins, the need to get the rules out may become even more urgent for Democrats. Any rules or regulations that are not final by Nov. 22 — 60 days before Romney would be sworn in — can be easily put on hold on Jan. 20.

That means the Obama administration would have a huge incentive to have as much of the health law as possible in “final” rule form within two weeks of a Romney victory. Rules and regulations that aren’t final can be more easily changed than those that are.

Susan Dudley, director of the regulatory studies center at The George Washington University and a former administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under President George W. Bush, said the past several presidents have put a stop to as much as they possibly could on Inauguration Day.

“At noon on Jan. 20, one of the first memos out of the chief of staff’s office will be, ‘No regulations get sent to the Federal Register until our appointees look at them,’” Dudley said.

Few significant regulations relating to the health law have come out in recent months. And HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has held fewer news conferences on the law than she did in the first two years after the law passed.

That’s all the more reason that David Merritt, managing director at Leavitt Partners, is expecting a “torrent of regulations” after Election Day.

“I think it’s common knowledge they slow-walked a lot of these. You will see that torrent,” Merritt said. “Will there be enough time for them to become final rules [before a potential Romney inauguration]? Some, probably. Others, probably not. So much is up in the air.”

One of the most important regulations not yet issued is the potentially controversial one to specify what health insurance policies must cover. And final rules have not been issued on other significant pieces of the law, such as those governing the health insurance exchanges, the individual mandate and how to define “full-time” and “part-time” employees in regard to employer penalties.

Why do we expect our businesses to afford costly healthcare insurance to full-time employees? It makes business uncompetitive, employers are not healthcare providers and it makes employers the determiners of what, if any medical insurance, an individual has. We should use Obamacare as a stepping stone to universal healthcare, and end employer-sponsored health insurance, By doing so, employers will have no need for this dash to creation of only part-time work in their companies, and return to use of full-time employees again. Individuals need full-time work, and they need health insurance, something the employer has been very poor at providing recently.

Thousands of new regulations driving our nation into the ground...Obama's regulations have already added over $1 Trillion in yearly costs to our economy. Where do you think that money came from? It came out of Your pocket, one way or another. If we want our economy moving forward, growing and creating jobs again then we need to dump Obama, and his raft of regulations.

The question has been answered and the verdict is in; Obamanomics is a proven failure. Do we really want another four years of stagnation, unemployment, high gas food and energy prices and rising inflation? Enough is enough.

Can't wait for the morons on the left to get their heads slapped into reality about what Obamacare costs them and what it doesn't cover. If free birth control and abortion is all you want, you're good. It will cost you big money. Anything else, it will cost you big, big money. Idiots, enjoy! Medicare recipients, you're screwed.

When an administration will not show the public what it's intentions are in order to win an election they do nor deserve to lead us. When they refuse to tell the truth about an issue they were involved in, i.e. Bengazi, they do not deserve to lead. When they fail to keep promises they made in order get into office they should leave office.

This is a completely dishonest administration and if you are ok with that then vote for this clown. And when the next four years prove to be a another complete failure, don't say it was Bush's fault or everybody was against him or some other stupid excuse about it's not his fault. No it's just as much your fault. You can look in the mirror and say I helped him get re-elected.

You Obamabots have definitely lost a few of your screws if you vote for this Communist Fool again! Are you completely out of your insane minds ? My God ! Go to Europe if you want to live like he wants us to, and leave our Free Country alone! It just FROST me, that you are so pitifully uninformed or stupid or selfish....geeze

Writethinker - "Why do we expect our businesses to afford costly healthcare insurance to full-time employees? It makes business uncompetitive"

First, I'm the last person who would decide to CREATE employer administered health insurance. But you have to understand, it is the system we have, and the ACA made every effort to avoid disruption of the current system. But if there were appetite for temporary disruption, I'd recommend that we split health insurance entirely from employers. The reason is that it tends to suppress the entrepreneurial spirit of workers. If you have a great idea for a business you are more likely to strike out on your own if you are not afraid of losing everything because you get sick or you have a pre-existing condition.

However, saying that expecting service businesses to afford health insurance makes them uncompetitive is patent nonsense. Uncompetitive with who? Their domestic competitors? They are in the same market for customers and employees. It would tend to affect them equally, and both would raise prices. Look at the comments of Papa John's founder. He hates Obamacare, but he says he can implement it and it will just make him raise the price on a pie by 12 cents, if I recall correctly.

Now, you could make an argument that = 50 employee businesses. But keep in mind that getting access to employer sponsored health insurance is a net selling point for the larger business that is offering it. I'd tend to think the competitive pressure would be on the smaller business to offer insurance. But in the end it wouldn't have to, and could take advantage of that to help it shore up its resources.

(1) Romney/Ryan thorougly understand the economic, social, cultural, political, national security, international, and human rights problems facing America and us Americans and have the determination, knowledge, experience, and skills to deal with them. (2) During the 4 DEBATES, Romney/Ryan reflected a thorough understanding of all of the domestic and foreign policy issues discussed and won the debates with substance, directness, integrity, respect, clarity, facts, commitment, inspiration, credibility, and leadership. (3) Romney/Ryan are firmly committed to getting our ECONOMY back in shape (more jobs, higher wages, small business support) and to taking desperately-needed steps to cut our deficit and ultimately balance our budget. (4) Romney/Ryan are firmly committed to refrain from implementing any more ineffective and costly QUANTITATIVE EASING (i.e., pumping money into the economy by printing dollars) but rather will concentrate on creating wealth for all Americans through robust job creation, higher take-home pay, and a true economic recovery. (5) Romney/Ryan are firmly committed to developing a desperately-needed coherent FOREIGN POLICY for America, especially since the absence of one currently exposes America to uncalculated risk-taking in regional and domestic conflicts around the world that easily can escalate into a global war. (6) Romney/Ryan will bring about legal IMMIGRATION REFORM via Congress in such a manner as to: (a) give more American businesses the opportunity to hire legal immigrants; (b) give more legal immigrants the opportunity to live/work in America; (c) give many illegal immigrants with historical long-term roots in America the opportunity to take responsibility for their mistakes and forge a path to a legal immigration status; and (d) secure America’s borders and send an unequivocal message to potential illegal immigrants that America is NOT a place where they (and people smugglers who exploit them) will be able to thrive economically. Latinos and Hispanics must understand that Obama’s direct attempts to sidestep and diminish Congress’ exclusive constitutional right to pass immigration legislation undermine America’s democracy and democratic institutions. (7) I agree with the premise of the article “Mitt Romney is Right” by Dick Morris (see text at http://www.foxnews.com/politic... that while we Americans definitely deserve government benefits when we are having various temporary or even permanent problems, we do NOT deserve to grow so dependent upon these benefits that we end up failing to exercise our independence and use our talents that we indeed can and need to exercise and use. (8) A Republican Mormon as President and a Republican Catholic as Vice-President will be an interesting and viable political and religious combination. While I believe in a strong separation of government and religion so that religious freedoms for all can indeed remain “free” and unsuppressed, as a voter I look favorably upon electing government officials who believe in God and who use this belief to bolster their personal and professional ethics. At the same time, I will not vote for or against someone just because he/she is a religious person since I know many people who are not religious (including those who are agnostic or atheist) and with whom I share many core beliefs. On a personal note, while I am a Christian (without a strong preference for any particular denomination), my spouse is an atheist. (9) There are several CHARACTERISTICS both Romney and Ryan have that are critical to the president and vice-president positions (I do not recall any past president/vice president combination having these characteristics to the degree that Romney and Ryan reflect them). Both Romney and Ryan are highly disciplined, methodic, analytical, and focused on PROBLEM-SOLVING, i.e., defining specific problems, studying them from all angles (which also includes analyzing indepth opposing viewpoints), breaking them down into their component parts, coming up with creative, practical, and workable solutions to them, and then implementing and refining these solutions. People who employ a significant amount of critical thinking in their lives tend to be less concerned about “labels” and who is “right or wrong”, “Democrat or Republican”, etc. and instead are focused on coming up with the best solutions to specific problems. Since our America currently has plenty of truly complex domestic and foreign problems, I believe that this problem-solving approach is very much needed in the White House and has been very much lacking in the Obama/Biden ticket. (10) Finally, I am an INDEPENDENT voter and plan to remain so indefinitely, having earlier been a Republican Party member in the southwest and a Democratic Party member in the southwest and northeast. At the same time, I am a female feminist (egalitarian) person who very much values and promotes human dignity for all people. As I see it, the best option in voting is to be able to vote FOR a candidate, rather than simply AGAINST another candidate, as well as being able to vote FOR a party platform, rather than simply AGAINST another party platform. Unfortunately, during the past few years I often find myself making compromises between these for and against options. My personal view is that the current Democratic Party has become far too liberal in its ideology, while the current Republican Party has become far too conservative in its ideology. As a result, a lot of us Americans who do NOT see life in terms of stark contrasts (but rather in terms of a MOSAIC) find it difficult to support candidates from either of these two parties. However, as in life generally, in politics there must also be compromise. Of course, I could vote for a candidate from a non-Republican, non-Democratic party, but I want my vote to count in terms of actually getting someone elected whom I can expect to do the job in an excellent way. After careful research and consideration and for the reasons stated above, among others, I have made my compromise in favor of the Romney/Ryan ticket.

This election is NOT about who wins but rather about who is the best person and in the best position in terms of qualifications and character to lead our country in the direction that our country needs to go to solve our problems and make life better for all Americans. I am INSPIRED by the Romney/Ryan ticket since I can envision how they would lead our country in a positive and productive direction - I hope that you too are inspired by them!

I hope that you will vote on Tuesday, November 6th, for the presidential candidate that you think will help to make you, your family, our America, and all of us Americans strong, secure, and stable. Good luck to all of you in making your decision about who we should elect to help us manage our country in a time of its great and pressing needs. I will be very glad and thankful if you join me on Tuesday, November 6th, in voting for the Romney/Ryan ticket!

Tell me it's not fundamentally dishonest for obama to delay the effects of his signature legislation - just as he delayed the true cost of it through accounting trickery. If the American people do not dump him they will bring unprecidented consequences on themselves.

I can see it now,the moronic liberals will blame corporate America when companies have to convert their full time workers to part time in order to avoid the Obamacare costs. The Loon leftist brain washed useful idiots in colleges will carry their little signs blaming corporate America for the lack of full time jobs.

My friend and I were talking and we thought companies should make it a point to not hire Democrats since they are opposed to capitalism and why hire someone who is against companies who are trying to make a profit?? Better yet since the majority of college students are Democrats,don't hire new college graduates..period. Retrain the older work force who believe in the power of capitalism and forget about the Marxist college grads.

Actually it isn't, because politico and the rrest of the LSM have intentionally kept it out of the news headlines in order to get obama elected. Personally, I think there should be some criminal responsibility for this type of journalistic malpractice by democrat house organs like politico and the rest.

"If the health law isn’t repealed, . . . . the health industry will still have to comply with the law and will demand to know the details of what they need to do."

Complete bull!

Obama has already set the precedent that if the President disagrees with the enforcement of a particular set of laws and regulations (such as our immigration laws) he can just ignore them and can order the agency in charge of enforcing those laws also to ignore them. President Romney just needs to issue an order telling HHS to ignore the existing laws and regulations. According to Obama, that will put an end to the whole matter.

The worst part of Obamacare hasn't even been written yet. There will be a huge push from insurance companies, hospitals, pharmaceut\and the AMA...all organizations which have been bought off by various backdoor payments and promises in Obamacare to keep it. Obamacare must be repealed.